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Topspin

Mayor Rahm Emanuel hasn't even said for sure that he'll seek a third term in 2019, but Gov. Bruce Rauner predicted Monday the mayor won't be around for a fourth.

The governor’s prognostication that “the current mayor is not going to be mayor in 2023” came at an event about the stalled effort to create a toll lane on the Stevenson Expressway, as Rauner talked about his veto last week of Emanuel’s proposed changes to the city’s pension funds for municipal workers and laborers.

The mayor's plan calls for a 3-percentage-point hike in what new city employees pay toward their retirement benefits, as well as ramped-up pension contributions from taxpayers.

The city has adopted a new tax on water and sewer service that covers increased pension contributions to the municipal fund through 2023, when the contributions are set to spike by hundreds of millions of dollars. That means city taxpayers in 2024 would have to come up with an additional $278 million — an amount that would continue to grow each year until 2057.

“Who’s not going to be mayor in 2023?” Rauner said. “The current mayor is not going to be mayor in 2023. That’s why they did it. All this is, all this is a system to dump the problem into the next elected official, no change, no protection of taxpayers, no fundamental reform.”

How the city would handle the need for $278 million more for the retirement plans would have to be decided in late 2023, under the city’s budgeting schedule. If Emanuel is still in office, that would be at the start of his fourth term.

The response to Rauner from the mayor’s campaign spokesman was characteristic of the recent harsh tone between the two leaders and onetime vacation pals.

"At the rate he's going, Bruce Rauner should be more concerned with who's governor in 2019 than he is with who's mayor in 2023,” spokesman Pete Giangreco said.

And Molly Poppe, the city’s financial spokeswoman, also took a dig at the governor, who has presided over the state during an historic budget impasse.

“Bizarre comments from the governor given the fact that the state’s bill backlog has more than doubled since he's been in office,” Poppe said. “The city has a plan to pay for every single one of our pensions, while he has yet to introduce a balanced budget."

Rauner also on Monday called the increased pension contributions from new employees, who would be allowed to retire two years earlier, “pretty much a wash.”

Poppe disagreed, saying the move would save $2 billion over the next 40 years.

She said city officials have acknowledged the contribution spike in 2023, while the mayor has contended that increasing taxes too quickly could harm the city’s economy (though Emanuel has presided over a series of city tax and fee hikes in recent years).

Without the changes, the funds are at risk of going broke. That could force a massive all-at-once tax increase that dwarfs what the city has done so far. (Hal Dardick, Kim Geiger)

What's on tap

*Mayor Emanuel will announce the next milestone in the Smart Lighting program at 1:45 p.m.

*Gov. Rauner will talk about ethics during an afternoon event in Springfield.

*The Illinois Nurses Association will hold a Springfield news conference about layoffs of nurses in prisons.

From the notebook

*Burke vs. Arena: The tradition of Chicago City Council members enjoying near-complete control over property zoning questions within their wards took a hit Monday when a powerful Southwest Side alderman stepped in to at least temporarily halt a project favored by a colleague in a Northwest Side neighborhood.

Ald. John Arena, 45th, was ushering through the Zoning Committee a controversial plan to rezone a parcel in Jefferson Park for construction of a self-storage facility.

Dozens of people had spoken against the idea over several hours — and a smaller group in favor of it — when 14th Ward Ald. Edward Burke abruptly took the unusual step of asking whether a majority of the committee's 18 members were on hand. When a head count revealed just seven aldermen still in chambers, Burke said that lack of a quorum meant the body couldn't consider the proposal. The committee adjourned, leaving the measure in limbo at least until next month.

Arena has ruffled some feathers on the council since his 2011 election, serving as an outspoken member of the Progressive Caucus that opposes some of Mayor Emanuel's initiatives and occasionally calling into question whether his colleagues are too acquiescent to the mayor's agenda. Several aldermen suggested Burke butted into the Northwest Side zoning dispute in part because Arena had shown people up in the past and had failed to do other members of the Zoning Committee the courtesy of asking for their support for the change he was seeking.

Burke insisted he called for a quorum because the high level of resident interest deserved a majority of committee members on hand to hear it, and because he had questions about whether Arena followed the proper steps when settling a lawsuit about the property with the developer.

"Our rules say we have to have a quorum, and so be it," Burke said after the hearing, though council committees routinely take votes with fewer than half their members on hand. "There apparently is a huge amount of interest in this, so shouldn't we operate under our rules if there is this much interest?"

In 2015, Burke's Burnham Committee campaign fund contributed $1,000 to John Garrido, who ran unsuccessfully against Arena and who is now one of the organizers of the residents who oppose the zoning change. The project in Jefferson Park also is slated to include a 100-unit building with subsidized apartments, and many neighborhood homeowners are vehemently against that aspect of the plan.

Asked about Burke's motives, Arena declined comment, but said he was confident the zoning change would get approved soon. (John Byrne)